Alban Richard discovered contemporary dance while he was pursuing literary and musical studies. From the late 1990s, he worked for various choreographers such as Odile Duboc, Olga de Soto and Rosalind Crisp.

In 2000, Alban Richard founded Ensemble l'Abrupt for which he created about thirty very different pieces, always in close interaction with a musical work whose writing and formal structure he questioned. Consequently, each creation opens up new research and a new performance style, setting itself apart from the previous one. The way he develops his shows, using restricted improvisations to devise the work directly on stage, encourages the performers to become creators of their own dance.

Alban Richard has collaborated with the Alla francesca ensemble, Les Talens Lyriques, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, the Ensemble intercontemporain, IRCAM and the Cairn, Instant Donné and Alternance ensembles, as well as with composers Arnaud Rebotini, Sebastian Rivas, Erwan Keravec, Jérôme Combier, Laurent Perrier, Raphaël Cendo, Robin Leduc, Paul Clift, Wen Liu and Matthew Barnson.

A prolific choreographer, Alban Richard is regularly invited by ballets and companies, both internationally (Canada, Lithuania, Norway) and in France, to create commissioned works.

Since 2015 he has been artistic director of the centre chorégraphique national de Caen en Normandie, with a project based on both his practice as an author and on connecting with the territory and its inhabitants.

More information : https://ccncn.eu/english/

Fils du danseur Andrés Marín et de la chanteuse Isabel Vargas, il commence à danser dès son plus jeune âge. C’est un autodidacte, il ne s’est jamais présenté à aucun concours de danse d’où sa grande personnalité et son charisme naturel. En 1999, la danseuse gitane Manuela Carrasco l’invite en tant que soliste dans son spectacle La Raiz del Grito. En janvier 2002, il crée sa première compagnie et présente le spectacle Mas alla del tiempo. En 2004, il présente son deuxième travail de compagnie, Asimetrias. En octobre 2006, il lance El Alba del Ultimo Dia, à la Biennale de Séville. L’été suivant, il crée, sous la direction de Blanca Li, le rôle de Federico Garcia Lorca, dans Poeta en Nueva York. En parallèle avec sa carrière de danseur, Andrés Marín dirige des masterclass et sa propre école de danse « Andrés Marín Flamenco Abierto » à Séville-

Kader Attou is a dancer and choreographer from the company Accrorap. Athina, in 1994, marked the beginnings of the company set up with Mourad Merzouki, Eric Mezino and Chaouki Saïd, in Lyon. This show is a success that manages to transpose hip hop dance from the streets to the stage. Alone, he then created Prière pour un fou (1999) to renew the dialogue that the Algerian tragedy made improbable.
Douar (2004), conceived within the framework of the year of Algeria in France, questions the problems of the exile of young people from the districts of France and Algeria. Petites histoire.com (2008) recounts popular France based on burlesque sketches. In 2008, Kader Attou was appointed director of the National Choreographic Center of La Rochelle, thus becoming the first hip hop choreographer to head an institution. In 2018, he reunited with his early partner, Mourad Merzouki, with whom he created Danser Casa for the Montpellier Danse Festival. In 2019, he resumed a version for the street of The Roots with the dancers of the N.I.D. Epsedanse by Anne-Marie Porras for the Montpellier Dance Festival. Since 2022, he has settled in the Friche la Belle de Mai in Marseille.

Source: Montpellier danse

Having worked as a dancer, principally under François Raffinot at the Centre chorégraphique national du Havre (National Choreography Centre of Le Havre), Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh created the company Sui Generis in Le Havre in 1998. If her early writing created a “figurative” body (Anthume ou la sensation du membre fantôme (Anthume or the sensation of a phantom limb), 1998) which favoured the singularity of each dancer, the choreographer gradually began to tackle more abstract work, using themes like neurology or psychiatry (Texture/Composite, 1999, Sagen, 2001).

With Décompositions (Décompositions) (2003), Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh embarked on a cycle of pieces (CROISéES (Crossed) 2004; White Light, 2005; ici/Per.For, 2006) which marked a very clear break from the preceding pieces. The principle of “repetition” allows a reflection on rhythm and space. More abstract and contemplative in nature, this work invites the spectator to experience pieces with a hypnotic character.

Above and beyond the principles of choreography, which are reinvented using themes based on the perception of time (running away, memory), the choreographer regularly joined forces with other disciplines for her works, through artistic collaborations with artists like the composer Zeena Parkins, the visual artist Laurent Pariente and the writer Frédéric-Yves Jeannet.

Since 2007, Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh has created works that focus mainly on musical writing (Aboli Bibelot…rebondi, 2007; 5'24, 2008), and has also been influenced by certain aspects from the history of painting (Eaux-fortes (Etchings), 2007). Her works also use questions which run into and overlap her previous experiences, to bring them all together, while consistently challenging the methods of operation.  
Today, the choreographer's desire to create is about a way of writing which questions the role of figuration in abstraction, and places the dancer at the heart of the writing process (Ad Astra, 2009 and - transire -, 2010).

Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh also carries out teaching work with different target groups (students, teachers, professional dancers…) in the form of training courses, workshops, conferences and public rehearsals as well as in original works conceived specifically for amateur dancers (Double-jeux (Double-games), Metz, 2001; Rainbow, Rennes, 2008).

The Sui Generis company was based in Rennes from 2004 to 2011 and was in residence at the Triangle, a state-subsidised dance theatre, from 2007 to 2009.

In July 2011, Emmanuelle Vo Dinh was appointed by the Minister of Culture to succeed Hervé Robbe as the director of the centre chorégraphique national du Havre – Haute Normandie (National Choreography Centre of Le Havre -Upper Normandy), from January 2012.

Further information

Le Phare, CCN Le Havre

Updating: July 2013

 ROBERT SWINSTON (Artistic Director) graduated from the Juilliard School with a BFA in Dance. His experiences as a dancer began with the Martha Graham Apprentice Group. He performed with the companies of Kazuko Hirabayashi and Jose Limon, before joining Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC) in 1980. In 1992, he became Assistant to the Choreographer. After Cunningham’s death in 2009, Robert became Director of Choreography and maintained the company’s repertoire during the Legacy Tour (2010-2011). During this period, he assembled 25 Events for Merce Cunningham Dance Company, concluding with the final Event performances at the Park Avenue Armory. While Director of Choreography for the Merce Cunningham Trust (2012), Swinston created Four Walls / Doubletoss Interludes, an adaptation of John Cage’s Four Walls (1944) and Cunningham’s Doubletoss (1993) for Baryshnikov Arts Center. In January 2013, he became Artistic Director of the Centre national de danse contemporaine (CNDC) in Angers, France. In October 2017, 4 Femmes, his collaboration with French-American violinist, Elissa Cassini, and French visual artist, Agnès Thurnauer, will be presented in Angers. He has staged Cunningham works for companies such as the White Oak Dance Project, Rambert Dance Company, New York City Ballet, and the Paris Opera. In 2003, Robert Swinston was awarded a “Bessie” for the reconstruction and performance of How to Pass, Kick, Fall and Run (1965).

www.cndc.fr/